Maybe I'm just looking at it from my own experience with lots of my children's families not able to buy, being low income, refugees or immigrants, and I don't know much about the ways of housing associations at all, but I will repeat that local authorities will always need social housing, particularly in a place like London with all its influxes of refugees and economic migrants, and selling social housing will thus create a potential problem (even if it doesn't materialise right away).
Do you think there should be social housing?
As I mentioned above though, selling houses to their existing tenants won't change the waiting list situation whatsoever. If the houses weren't sold then the tenants would presumably stay in them, so there would be no new houses for those on the waiting list, and no new capital available to build new houses.
Whether I think there should be housing is irrelevent really, I'm just trying to look at the policies as rationally as possible.
A question back at you though. Do you think those in social housing should stay in social housing for their entire life? Is a big part of why welfare exists to get someone back on their own two feet?
You are absolutely right.
On the whole HAs are charities, run by people who know what they're on about. Charities generally exist because of a specific need. In this case to put roofs over the heads of people who otherwise can't afford one. The benefits to the country in terms of savings made on the social care, welfare and health bills are enormous.
Now, as charities there are so many potential problems ahead if the scheme was ever to be introduced. Often, the HAs do not own their housing stock outright. They are paying mortgages on them and servicing debt. If they sell their assets below market price (a practice illegal for charities btw) they will not have the capital for purchasing 14 more properties, or whatever the ridiculous figure stated earlier in the thread was.
That isn't what the policy says at all. It says that the discount will apply to the tenant, with the shortfall paid to the HA so they don't lose out.
Even if they didn't though, the government's own website says that the discount starts at 35%, so using my example from earlier, if 20 people chose to buy at that rate, then the HA would have enough money to buy 13 new houses at full value. I'm not seeing how that's an outlandish claim to make. Could you explain?
I fully understand what you're saying about the length of time it takes to buy/build new homes. I will say again however, if those 20 people did not choose to buy their council home, they would still be living in it, so not only would the HA face the same problems they do now with regards to finding new properties, but they'd have a whole lot less capital with which to do it.
